I am having a problem similar (or exactly the same) as described in MRELEASE-576 (http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MRELEASE-576).
I have a structure like this ExampleProject | +- branches | +- tags | +- trunk | +- pom.xml (modules=example-parent,example-app,example) | +- example-parent | | | +- pom.xml | +- example-app | | | +- pom.xml (parent=example-parent) | +- example-module | +- pom.xml (parent=example-parent) | +- src So basically I would describe this as having a simple aggregator pom (example-releng) that just lists the modules Then I have a parent pom (example-parent) that contains my configurations for the child modules to inherit from Then I have modules (example-app,example) that have a parent and usual module stuff This setup seems to work for release:branch but not release:prepare. When I do release:prepare, what happens is the "tags" folder ends up getting everything under ExampleProject (i.e. branches,tags,trunk) Is there any kind of special option to get release:prepare to tag the correct folder (just the "trunk" folder) This structure does work if I make the example-releng the parent for example-parent, but that causes me problems because I use eclipse and don't want to have to have the example-releng pom checked out into the root of my workspace. I have also gotten this to work using the regular "flat project structure" no aggregator pom (example-releng) so that example-parent just declares all the modules. But this causes me problems when I try to run a "regular" maven goal (like install) with -pl option to only build one project (with it's dependencies using -am). Which I have also tried using mvn reactor:make -Dmake.artifacts=example but that doesn't seem to work the with the "flat project structure" either. So basically I'm looking for what I can do from here??? What structure do I use if I'd like to be able to tag and branch and build using the same structure (with the added twist of being able to work inside eclipse) Any pointers on how to get all this to work would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Michael